


My Name is Your Name

by terunakamura



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fun with alphabets, Humor, Languages, M/M, Yuuri doesn't know Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 08:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8481898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terunakamura/pseuds/terunakamura
Summary: Yuuri wants to try to learn the Cyrillic alphabet before they go to Russia for the Grand Prix Final.He does his best.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Magyar available: [Tiéd a nevem](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11423535) by [Suonjar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suonjar/pseuds/Suonjar)



> You can never have enough fun with learning new languages. I'm not familiar with Russian but I have tried to learn the Cyrillic alphabet. If I'm not good at it, Yuuri can't be either.

Yuuri leaned against Victor as they sat together watching a news report on the upcoming Grand Prix Final. Victor’s Japanese had improved since he’d arrived in Japan, but it still wasn’t anywhere near good enough to comprehend the news reporter’s quick speech. Therefore he wasn’t exactly watching the news, but messing around on his phone instead with the news as some background noise.

Yuuri let his eyes drift away from the TV to the screen of Victor’s phone. He was texting someone, but Yuuri had no idea who or what about. Some of the letters on the screen looked familiar from Yuuri’s knowledge of English, but a lot of them were completely incomprehensible. The message was obviously in Russian.

He had almost no knowledge of Russian, other than the pronunciations of a few words he’d heard Victor say. The Cyrillic alphabet just seemed too much to learn on top of the Roman alphabet. The only thing he knew how to write with Cyrillic was Victor’s name and that was only because he’d once made a banner to cheer Victor on at a competition when he was a kid. Even then he wasn’t sure what each individual letter was.

With the pair of them heading to Russia in a couple days for the Grand Prix Final, Yuuri supposed that he’d have to get used to not being able to read anything. But as Yuuri continued watching Victor type out his message, he wondered if it maybe wasn’t too late to learn.

“Victor?” Yuuri asked, still from his spot leaned against Victor’s shoulder. Victor let out a small ‘hm’ in response, still engrossed in his text. “Do you think I could learn Russian?”

Victor’s head whipped up from staring at his phone to give Yuuri an overjoyed look. “Of course, lyubov moya. I’m so glad you asked!” He grabbed Yuuri’s arm and dragged him up so they could find a place to practice.

They found themselves settled at the kotatsu with a mess of papers spread in front of them soon enough. Victor went to work work writing out each letter of the alphabet for Yuuri to see. “What do you want me to show you first?” Victor’s voice was filled with as much joy as his expression was.

“Ah, how about my name?” It was a good a place to start as any. Victor nodded and neatly wrote each letter on the sheet of paper in front of Yuuri.

Юри Кацуки

“Okay! Now you try!” Victor passed Yuuri a pen to try out the letters. It was shaky and slow going but Yuuri thought it looked okay. He turned the paper so Victor could see it properly. Victor let out a laugh. “I don’t think your name is ‘gori’… That first part ‘ГО’ should just be one letter. ‘Ю’.”

This already was going poorly. He did get it correct on the second attempt however.

“Much better. How about my name? It’s-”

“I know that one!” Yuuri’s face lit up and he pulled the paper away from Victor to show him.

Виктор Никифоров

Victor clapped his hands. “Wow! I wonder why you know that one….” He gave him a knowing look, and Yuuri felt his face go pink.

They practiced on for at least another hour. Victor taught Yuuri how to say some other useful words, like ‘hello’, ‘thank you’, ‘nice to meet you’, and most importantly ‘where is the bathroom’.

“That’s a phrase you should know in every language!” Victor had said.

The writing had turned out to almost be a lost cause with Yuuri finding almost every other spelling to words except for the correct ones. Regardless, Yuuri felt like he had accomplished something and hoped he could put it to use at the Grand Prix Final.

 

~~~

 

The sign-in for the Grand Prix final was the day before the actual event. Skaters, coaches and other members of staff all arrived early to make sure things were in order. Yuuri and Victor were just making their way up to the desk to get their ID badges for the event when someone grabbed Victor’s arm. It was his old coach, Yakov.

He started yelling at Victor in Russian and Yuuri was happy to say he could understand five of the vulgar terms the man used because of the few lessons he’d had from Victor.

“I think Yakov would like to have a talk with me. Will you be alright on your own, Yuuri?” Victor called to the other man as Yakov started to drag him away.

“I think so!” Yuuri approached the desk on his own and watched a few other people filling out forms to get their badges. All in Russian. The person working the desk could also speak a fair amount of English though.

“Do you know how to write your name in Russian?” she asked slowly. “I can write it if you can’t.”

Yuuri shook his head, and proudly picked up the pen to show off his newly discovered prowess in Cyrillic. He was confidant when he wrote his first name, but took a moment to remember how to write his surname. Yuuri was fairly sure it was right, and handed it back to the worker.

She glanced back and forth between the paperwork and Yuuri’s face. “This is your name?” she asked suspiciously.

“Yes?” Yuuri confirmed nervously. Did she think he was faking his identity?

With one last look at the paper, the woman shrugged and processed the form. Within a minute she was handing Yuuri an ID badge. “Enjoy the Grand Prix.”

Yuuri accepted the badge dubiously. He glanced at the badge quickly to check, and found that he definitely recognized all the letters on it. He still didn’t know what each letter was, but it must have been correct. With the badge now adorned, he wandered off to find where Victor had ended up. He was stopped in his tracks by none other than Yuri Plisetsky.

“Ah, Yurio.” Yuuri tried to greet the boy with a smile, only to be given an angry glare.

“That _isn’t_ my name,” Yuri spat angrily, once again getting up in Yuuri’s face. However, Yuri’s eyes drifted down to Yuuri’s ID badge. The corner of his mouth twitched. “I guess I’m not the only one with that problem though.” Yuri shoved Yuuri away a little harder than necessary. “I’ll see you tomorrow, _Yuuri_.” Yuuri wondered why Yuri snickered as he said his name.

He spent the better part of a half hour continuing to look for Victor. Every time he would stop to ask someone for help though, they’d start to laugh regardless if they were any help or not. Was there some sort of prank being pulled? He finally found Victor at a sitting area near the back of the Grand Prix’s venue. Somehow Victor had gotten his ID already too.

“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere!” Yuuri complained as he walked up to him. Victor smiled warmly.

“Oh, hello-” he stopped mid-sentence to stare at Yuuri’s ID badge. He burst into laughter, and Yuuri felt more than a bit upset. The laughter continued on for longer than necessary, and at the end Victor was nearly doubled over from lack of breath.

“What?!” Yuuri almost shouted at the other man. Victor shook his head and pulled Yuuri’s ID badge away.

“Hello, _Yuuri Nikiforov._ ” Victor had to hold in another laugh. “I know we’re happy together, Yuuri, but I didn’t know we were married!”

Yuuri went pale and wished he could melt into the floor and disappear. Now he knew why the letters were familiar. “No way….”

Victor put his hand on Yuuri’s shoulder and started to steer him back towards the sign-in desk. “Come on, lyubov moya. I’ll fix this.”

Victor explained the situation to the worker in Russian and to add to Yuuri’s embarrassment, she started to laugh as well. When they got a new set of paperwork, Victor filled it out instead. The worker said that the issue should be fixed and that they shouldn’t worry.

True to her word, there were no mishaps with his name when he went out onto the ice to perform his routine the next day.

He won gold.

As he stood on the winner’s podium to receive his award, Yuuri didn’t even spare a thought to the problem from yesterday. Little did he know that at that very moment, a banner was being hung up across the entrance of the onsen:

‘Congratulations, Yuuri Nikiforov.’

**Author's Note:**

> Translation:  
> 'lyubov moya' - 'my love'
> 
> I checked out the Russian wikipedia page for YOI to find the spellings for Yuuri and Victor's names, so hopefully they're correct!  
> Maybe I should have a follow up with Victor trying to write in Japanese? (At least I'm familiar with the Japanese language!)
> 
> If you notice any mistakes, please don't hesitate to point them out!


End file.
